Padres go long for win against Athletics

The consensus belief is that the Padres have to start hitting a lot more in order to continue winning at anywhere near the pace they have through the season's first 50 games.

For now, the team with the major leagues' lowest batting average and its fifth-best record is just trying to make its hits count.

The Padres continue to not hit very much at all. But when they do hit over the past couple weeks, the ball is going over the wall more often.

Hitting home runs is all they did for most of Friday's 7-3 victory over the Athletics.

Before the Padres (30-20) scored three times on four singles and a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning, they had come back twice and taken a lead on Manny Machado's game-tying two-run homer in the first inning, Nick Castellanos' game-tying solo homer in the fifth inning and Ramón Laureano's go-ahead solo homer in the seventh inning.

That ran their streak to nine consecutive runs via home runs after all five of their runs in their series against the Dodgers earlier this week came on homers.

Going back 12 games, 24 of their 44 runs have been driven in by home runs.

They are batting just better than .203 in those games, but they are 8-4 in that span.

"It feels like when we’re scoring, we cannot get many hits, I guess," Laureano said. "And we just either, you know, clutch hits or homers."

For the second straight game, the Padres were down from the start.

They trailed for good one pitch into Wednesday's 4-0 loss to the Dodgers when Shohei Ohtani led off with a home run.

It took four pitches for them to be down Friday.

The first two Athletics batters reached base against Walker Buehler - Carlos Cortes on a single bounced through the middle and Nick Kurtz on a double to left-center field. Cortes raced home on Kurtz's single, and Kurtz advanced the final 180 feet on successive groundouts.

But for the second time in three games, Machado hit a two-run homer that tied the game in the first inning.

A double by Zack Gelof and a single by Henry Bolte at the start of the fourth inning put the Athletics back ahead.

But Castellanos launched a ball high off the corner of the Western Metal building just fair and above the third balcony to tie the game in the fifth.

In between the Padres' two home runs, soft-throwing left-hander Jeffrey Springs retired 10 of the 11 batters he faced. The only interruption was a walk to Rodolfo Durán leading off the third inning. A line drive to center field by Fernando Tatis Jr. and double-play grounder by Miguel Andujar ended that inning quickly.

Buehler, who had allowed 10 baserunners and four runs in 11 innings over his past two starts, was trying to control traffic all night.

The Athletics put at least one of their first two batters on base in all five of his innings and three times had both reach base.

Bradgley Rodriguez replaced Buehler to start the sixth and got two quick outs before a pair of singles and a walk loaded the bases, and Adrian Morejón was called on to get out of the jam.

The left-hander did so with a strikeout of pinch-hitter Colby Thomas and then retired the Athletics' 2-3-4 batters in order in the seventh.

Laureano's one-out blast to left field put the Padres ahead 4-3 and ended Springs’ night.

Laureano entered the game batting .215, while Castellanos was at .194 and Machado at .178. But while this was Laureano’s first home run in 15 games, Machado has hit three in the past 12 games and Castellanos has three in that span.

"Even when these guys are struggling, they just have the ability for one swing to do some damage," manager Craig Stammen said. "And that’s the beauty of having those guys in our lineup. Maybe they’re not putting two, three hits together in a single night, but they have the ability for one big swing to matter immensely."

Singles by Durán, Tatis and Andujar loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth. Gavin Sheets drove in two runs with a single, and Xander Bogaerts capped the scoring with a sacrifice fly.

“We always evaluate every single game and how it goes,” Stammen said. “And today was a good game for us. “Sticking to the approach. We had some slug against Springs that kept us in the game. Those were the only hits we had off of him, really. And then we kind of broke it open against the reliever there at the end, which made a big difference in the end.”

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This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 9:44 PM.